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Ty Cobb, a lawyer in President Donald Trump's White House, cautioned that some key technical and legal details for the fund are still being finalized around how the money will be distributed to staffers. | Jerry Cleveland/The Denver Post via AP

White House legal defense fund close to launching

Some White House aides who face legal bills as a result of the congressional and special counsel investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 election could get financial support as soon as this week, a senior White House aide said on Monday.

The finishing touches are being put on a legal defense fund to help mid-level staffers pay for their attorneys, said Ty Cobb, a lawyer in President Donald Trump’s White House.

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“It’s well underway and ideally will be formatted this week so your average person who shouldn’t be forced to pay a lot of legal fees will have access to funds,” Cobb said.

Cobb cautioned that some key technical and legal details are still being finalized around how the money will be distributed to staffers, who will manage it and what the rules will be for contributing to the fund.

Last week, the Office of Government Ethics issued an advisory opinion clarifying its nearly 25-year-old internal policy that it does not permit anonymous donations to legal defense funds. White House aides have previously said they do not intend to allow anonymous gifts for staffers who need help paying for their lawyers.

Setting up defense funds is not unusual for administration employees who get tangled up in a major investigation, but it does show that the White House expects the wide-ranging probe to touch many of its staffers. Aides to former President Bill Clinton had legal defense funds set up during congressional and special counsel probes in his administration, and former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn’s family established one for him last month.

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As a cost-cutting measure, Cobb said the Trump White House is considering naming a single outside attorney who can be available to help staffers who do not hire their own attorney but get subpoenas or are informally asked to do interviews with special counsel Robert Mueller or one of the three congressional panels conducting independent investigations.

But Cobb said a final decision on using a so-called “pool counsel” hasn’t been made. Much will depend, he added, on whether the White House aides who get called in for questioning have conflicts with each other that would require separate legal representation.

“The idea is to make it as efficient as possible,” Cobb said. “But that’s secondary to making sure the staffers are well represented.”

Mueller’s team last week started interviewing Trump White House aides as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to a source familiar with the investigation. It is still unclear how many Trump staffers will end up getting called in for questioning.

“It could be very few, and it could be a dozen or more,” said a White House aide.

The expanding Russia probe has already been a boon for white-collar lawyerswho can charge upwards of $1,500 an hour for their services. More than two dozen people connected to the case have hired attorneys, including Trump himself, Vice President Mike Pence, senior adviser Jared Kushner, White House counsel Don McGahn, White House communications director Hope Hicks and former White House press secretary Sean Spicer.

Several staffers have retained the same attorney. Alan Futerfas, for example, is representing multiple people from the Trump Organization, including the president’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Rhona Graff, Trump’s longtime personal secretary.

Both McGahn and former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus are using one lawyer: William Burck, a former special counsel and deputy to President George W. Bush.

A source familiar with the McGahn-Priebus arrangement said it’s “normal in a situation like this to take on two clients in a related matter only if he has determined there is no legal or factual conflict between them.”

But the joint representation strategy has also drawn scrutiny from legal experts who warn it can cause problems if the two officials end up with competing interests.

“There’s definitely efficiency in sharing counsel among multiple parties,” said Richard Lucas, who served as legal counsel to an outside legal defense fund set up for President Clinton and Hillary Clinton. “But I think there’s a higher risk of conflicts of interest when you have multiple parties in a sensitive investigation.”

An attorney who represents two people who end up at odds, Lucas said, couldbe forced to resign from representing both individuals.